Anchored within current issues and debates in the field of Linguistic Landscape (LL) scholarship, this edited volume is concerned with politics of language and the semiotic construction of space in multilingual and multi-ethnic Asian countries. Spanning Malaysia, Singapore, Vietnam, Indonesia, the Philippines, Hong Kong, Taiwan and China, the chapters explore how different individuals and collectivities use semiotic resources in different spaces – schools, airports, streets and shops as well as online platforms – to reinforce or contest existing social structures, bearing strong implications for language maintenance and cultural revitalization, construction of ethnolinguistic and national identities, and socioeconomic mobility. Part I looks into how globalization and its accompanying forces and influences – such as the importance of English in socioeconomic mobility – come into contact with local Asian cultures and languages. Part II examines minority languages, demographically and socio-politically established in the countries, shedding light on the role of LL that plays in both their minorization and revitalization processes. Part III investigates how LL is utilized as a site for constructing identities to pursue socioeconomic, political and cultural goals. It is within this perspective that the presence and salience of English in the LL of the countries along with the use of the Asian languages is analyzed and understood, shedding light on how Asian heritage languages and cultures are preserved and/or certain identities in the times of political unrest or economic development are expressed. This fascinating insight into linguistic landscapes in Asia will be of interest to researchers, students and policy makers in sociolinguistics and applied linguistics anywhere in the world.

This volume tracks the complex relationships between language, education and nation-building in Southeast Asia, focusing on how language policies have been used by states and governments as instruments of control, assimilation and empowerment. Leading scholars have contributed chapters each representing one of the countries in the region.

The first volume of its kind, focusing on the sociolinguistic and socio-political issues surrounding Asian Englishes The Handbook of Asian Englishes provides wide-ranging coverage of the historical and cultural context, contemporary dynamics, and linguistic features of English in use throughout the Asian region. This first-of-its-kind volume offers a wide-ranging exploration of the English language throughout nations in South Asia, Southeast Asia, and East Asia. Contributions by a team of internationally-recognized linguists and scholars of Asian Englishes and Asian languages survey existing works and review new and emerging areas of research in the field. Edited by internationally renowned scholars in the field and structured in four parts, this Handbook explores the status and functions of English in the educational institutions, legal systems, media, popular cultures, and religions of diverse Asian societies. In addition to examining nation-specific topics, this comprehensive volume presents articles exploring pan-Asian issues such as English in Asian schools and universities, English and language policies in the Asian region, and the statistics of English across Asia. Up-to-date research addresses the impact of English as an Asian lingua franca, globalization and Asian Englishes, the dynamics of multilingualism, and more. Examines linguistic history, contemporary linguistic issues, and English in the Outer and Expanding Circles of Asia Focuses on the rapidly-growing complexities of English throughout Asia Includes reviews of the new frontiers of research in Asian Englishes, including the impact of globalization and popular culture Presents an innovative survey of Asian Englishes in one comprehensive volume Serving as an important contribution to fields such as contact linguistics, World Englishes, sociolinguistics, and Asian language studies, The Handbook of Asian Englishes is an invaluable reference resource for undergraduate and graduate students, researchers, and instructors across these areas. Winner of the 2021 PROSE Humanities Category for Language & Linguistics

This volume describes both the history and the contemporary forms, functions, and status of English in Southeast Asia. The chapters provide a comprehensive overview of current research on a wide range of topics, addressing the impact of English as a language of globalization and exploring new approaches to the spread of English in the region.

This comprehensive and absorbing book traces the cultural history of Southeast Asia from prehistoric (especially Neolithic, Bronze-Iron age) times through to the major Hindu and Buddhist civilizations, to around AD 1300. Southeast Asia has recently attracted archaeological attention as the locus for the first recorded sea crossings; as the region of origin for the Austronesian population dispersal across the Pacific from Neolithic times; as an arena for the development of archaeologically-rich Neolithic, and metal using communities, especially in Thailand and Vietnam, and as the backdrop for several unique and strikingly monumental Indic civilizations, such as the Khmer civilization centred around Angkor. Southeast Asia is invaluable to anyone interested in the full history of the region.

The handbook will offer a survey of the field of linguistics in the early 21st century for the Southeast Asian Linguistic Area. The last half century has seen a great increase in work on language contact, work in genetic, theoretical, and descriptive linguistics, and since the 1990s especially documentation of endangered languages. The book will provide an account of work in these areas, focusing on the achievements of SEAsian linguistics, as well as the challenges and unresolved issues, and provide a survey of the relevant major publications and other available resources. We will address: Survey of the languages of the area, organized along genetic lines, with discussion of relevant political and cultural background issues Theoretical/descriptive and typological issues Genetic classification and historical linguistics Areal and contact linguistics Other areas of interest such as sociolinguistics, semantics, writing systems, etc. Resources (major monographs and monograph series, dictionaries, journals, electronic data bases, etc.) Grammar sketches of languages representative of the genetic and structural diversity of the region.

This book addresses the problems and possibilities of English language education in Southeast Asia from the point-of-view of researchers who are themselves also English language teachers. The researchers are from Malaysia, Indonesia, Philippines, Singapore and New Zealand. The articles in this edited book examine teaching and language learning goals in relation to the desired development of linguistic knowledge. More importantly, the articles also reflect on the nurturing of appropriate learning abilities and independent thinking that is framed by the expanding learner awareness of identity, culture, and society within and beyond the classroom. Ultimately, the book tackles issues that emerge from the fact that we teach and learn English in a region that is hugely multicultural and multilingual.

The book contains a collection of studies of the linguistic landscape - the use of written language on signs in the public sphere - in 5 different societies: Israel, Japan, Thailand, the Netherlands (Friesland) and Spain (Basque Country). All contributions focus on multilingualism in the social context of the major cities.

A fascinating story of a subject central to South-East Asian cultures, this book shows how rice shapes the landscapes that the people of South-East Asia see around them and how it contributes to the ordering of their lives. Not only is rice the staple food in most of the region, but the rice-farm determines the rhythm of the year as its major ceremonials mark the changing seasons. Not surprisingly, rice has come to represent fertility, and folk beliefs about how to farm and store rice and their associated rituals are a corner-stone of South-East Asian cultures. In this highly illustrated work, Jacqueline M. Piper details the tremendous impact rice growing has made on the land over millennia, converting mountain, hill, and valley to rice-fields, and providing, through the implements of rice cultivation, many opportunities for craftsmenship, design, and decoration.

Multilingual China explores the dynamics of multilingualism in one of the most multilingual countries in the world. This edited collection comprises frontline empirical research into a range of important issues that arise from the presence of 55 official ethnic minority groups, plus China’s search to modernize and strengthen the nation’s place in the world order. Topics focus on the dynamics of national, ethnic minority and foreign languages in use, policy making and education, inside China and beyond. Micro-studies of language contact and variation are included, as are chapters dealing with multilingual media and linguistic landscapes. The book highlights tensions such as threats to the sustainability of weak languages and dialects, the role and status of foreign languages (especially English) and how Chinese can be presented as a viable regional or international language. Multilingual China will appeal to academics and researchers working in multilingualism and multilingual education, as well as sinologists keen to examine the interplay of languages in this complex multilingual context.